Page 12 - NMRA Roundhouse March-April 2020

Cass Scenic Railroad
Jason Stamper
COVER ARTICLE
Heisler #6 awaits her turn to scale the mountain as the passengers are boarding, photos by Jason Stamper
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N estled way back in the lush Pulp and Paper Company, Cass was built
to be the hub for their major logging operations in the area.The town was built and wholly owned by the company for the loggers and their families. It had all the trappings of a company town in- cluding churches, a school, a doctor, and a large company store.
The Cass company store carried all the necessities for the loggers and their fam- ilies. Like most company stores workers could use a credit account against their pay to buy what they needed.
Along with the company town WVP&P built a logging railroad into their land holdings on Back Allegheny Mountain. [Back Allegheny Mountain is a long mountain ridge in eastern West Virginia. It is part of
the Shavers Fork Mountain Complex in the Allegheny Range of the Appalachians... Ed]
The railroad was built to standard gauge, but the steep grades and often tempo- rary track-work required the use of the mighty Shay locomotive.The company rail lines also interchanged at Cass with the Chesapeake and Ohio’s Greenbriar division to get the lumber to market.
The WVP&P’s rail lines up Back Alleghe- ny Mountain were very steep and used switchbacks to climb the mountain. In places the grade is as much as 9%, this means that the line rises 9 feet for every 100 feet of travel!
The main purpose of the railroad was to
mountains of West Virginia is a place time has almost forgotten.There are no big
chain supermarkets or restaurants, no massive apartment complexes, no traffic jams, and not even any mobile phone service.What there is however, is noth- ing short of magic. In the air is the faint odor of coal smoke and oil, and if you listen, you may just hear the lonesome cry of a steam locomotive’s whistle!
Founded in 1901 by the West Virginia
Old #5, a 1905 Lima built Shay locomo- tive, sits waiting for the day’s work. She is the oldest operating Shay locomotive in the world still working on the same line as she was built for
transport spruce and hemlock to
be used in making paper. However, the company soon realized that they could also make a lot of money with the hardwoods that were available and began logging them too.This led the company
ROUNDHOUSE - March/April 2020